Henry fitz Ailwin, Mayor of London

Notes:

Also called Henry Fitz Eylwin; Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonstone.

First Mayor of London, 1189-1212.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Henry fitz Ailwin was an alderman of London by 1168, and from then on appears frequently as a witness with other chief citizens. His equestrian seal, resembling that of the influential William Bucuinte, is expressive of claims to status and ancestry. He had a close connection with the sheriff Richard fitz Reiner, a key figure in the emergence of the commune in the early 1190s. Henry's appearance at the head of a group of four men of rank--nobiles of the city--who included Richard, indicates his role as civic leader. He is first certainly identified as mayor in 1194. Initially that position may have been informal, for even after that year he sometimes witnessed in an official capacity without being styled mayor. But no other person is named as holding the mayoralty during his life time, and there can be no doubt that Henry held it until his death. No other mayor of London has held office on a life term. As mayor Henry fitz Ailwin embodied the interests of the leading citizens, sometimes in opposition to the majority--who found a vociferous spokesman in William fitz Osbert (d. 1196)--but he was also the king's man, as is evident from his frequent association with the justice Roger fitz Reinfrey. Throughout his mayoralty he was regularly accompanied by Roger fitz Alan, his successor as mayor and probably his nephew. On a few occasions about 1205 he was designated dominus, a style not generally accorded to mayors of London until a later date.

Henry fitz Ailwin's recorded actions illuminate his public role rather than his personal character. In 1193 he was one of those entrusted with the money collected for the king's ransom, and in 1194 he arrested a foolish messenger from the king's brother. In 1208 he negotiated for the use of ground outside the walls as a burial-ground for Londoners during the interdict. After the great fire of 1212 he and other barons of London issued a code governing rebuilding. He was a pious benefactor to the church and, probably after 1199, endowed obits at Holy Trinity Priory, St Bartholomew's Hospital, Westminster Abbey, London Bridge Chapel, and the nunneries of Clerkenwell and Godstow. He also contributed to the foundation of St Mary Spital, and was remembered as the founder of a chapel at Watton. Appropriately, he was buried in the entry to the chapter house at Holy Trinity Priory.

Henry married Margaret in 1164. Margaret died after 1212. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Peter fitz Henry died in 1207.

Notes:

Also called Æthelwine.

Notes:

Also called Ongar.

Notes:

He may have been a son of Ailwin Horne of Walkern, Hertfordshire, thegn in Middlesex and Bedfordshire before 1066. One of this Ailwin's great-granddaughters was the wife of William Blemund, a Norman landowner whose possessions included a rural area north of London called Blemondsberi, later Bloomsbury.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on Henry fitz Ailwin, first mayor of London, Henry's grandfather Leofstan "was later believed to have been the reeve of London associated with the royal foundation (1108) of Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate" and "may have been the domesman who died in 1115 and was buried in Bermondsey Priory." We follow Anthony Wagner's pedigree for Henry fitz Ailwin, in which Henry's great-great grandfather Leofstan, not Henry's grandfather of the same name, is identified as "portreeve of London, 1066." This certainly seems more chronologically plausible.